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Iranian actress Kiana Firouz fears film of her life ends in death

Martin Fletcher

May 20 2010, 1:01am, The Times

A young Iranian actress named Kiana Firouz will attend the London premiere tonight of a film in which she plays a lesbian seeking asylum in Britain because the Iranian authorities are pursuing her. The Home Office rejects her application and sends her back to the Islamic republic, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.

Unfortunately for Kiana Firouz the film is not make-believe. It is based on her life. The Home Office has denied her asylum and she now faces the prospect of deportation to Iran followed by flogging, execution or both.

“Definitely she will be killed,” says Ramin Goudarzi Nejad, the London-based director of Cul-de-Sac.

“She would be arrested . . . She would be tortured. She could face execution not for being a lesbian but…

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